The Last Princess
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Starting on a personal project and thought I would share my progress. Spent a week in Disney over the holiday and of course was inspired by all that is Disney. I had an idea of taking the Star Wars The last Jedi movie poster and make up a new movie. I came up with The Last Princess... When Maleficent and Ursula team up to eliminate all of the Princesses, a new Princess is born and is the only one that can stop them. I think it would be a fun movie. It was also fun thinking about who I would get to voice it. Here are some of my progress. Going to take a break and work on this months prompt.
Step 1 rough idea:
Step 2 rough sketch of characters:
Step 3 clean lines and text overlay:
Onto local color and will share once that is done.
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It's a nice idea to put together characters from different movies whilst considering a backstory onto a poster, but I'm not exactly sure if you are bringing anything new to the piece. There doesn't seem to be any connection between the characters on the poster, rather just a copy of the characters you most likely found from a google search. Also i'm not sure why you are considering voice actors for it as you could name anyone from Tom Cruise to Jill from down the street if it has no connection to the painting. I think the project would be much better if you designed the characters in your own style and if you wanted to focus on specific voice actors for each role then give those characters a taste of that voice actor. A lot of movies recently are not modeled 100% on their specific voice actor, but you can occasionally see the influence in the design.
Fan art is great if you enjoy doing that, but the best fan artists out there put their own style into the piece whilst still being relatable to the source material.
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@gary-wilkinson Thanks for the feedback, however I am not looking to redesign the characters in anyway. If Disney were to put out a movie like this they wouldn't ask for their iconic characters to be redesigned. Its more of a study of the characters then trying to do something different with them. I wanted to pick voice actors that people would recognize the name and those are some of my favorite. If i was doing a concept poster, then yes I might just use filler names but this is just a personal project to fulfill my own needs.
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I don't want to come off as defensive with my comment but to explain where I am coming from with it. The purpose is if Disney put out a movie this could be the poster. You also mention no connection between the characters yet the the main characters on the poster are from the same movie. The plot would be all the characters are in the movie sort of like Infinity War and of course there would be multiple posters for the movie to highlight certain characters just like any other movie.
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@chip-valecek Hi, Chip! Great concept you've got here. I don't have much to say except that since this movie of yours focuses on "the last princess", wouldn't it be right to show her on the poster?
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Hi Chip, solid concept! Though I'm confused about the two arms coming out from the sides. The main flow of the drawing appears to be from the center branching out, so the arms conflict with that to me. Are the arms Maleficent's hands? It appears they are two right arms so I'm not sure. Perhaps the amulet and poison apple could be graphical elements on their own, like part of a background pattern?
I agree the Last Princess should sort of appear on the poster, but it could be subtle...maybe a tiny light-colored silhouette facing down Ursula?
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@nyrryl-cadiz Yes I thought about adding her somehow, i will have to think about that some more.
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@carriecopa The arms are from the evil witch and Dr. Facilier but i get what you are saying now that you pointed it out. I think i will remove the hands and just keep the apple and amulet as part of the background.
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I hope you don't find my comments to be insulting in anyway Chip, as my aim is to provide support and advice, which may be subjective, but there is reasoning behind it
When I said about there been no connection, I meant that the characters don't feel like they are in the same movie as there is no interaction and the interaction that does exist is quite muddled. If you look at the original poster for The Little Mermaid you can quickly understand that the two main characters are in love, their friends are supporting/ happy for her, but their situation is under threat from the two characters at the top of the poster. The one on the right has very cool colors and evil features so we know she is the baddie and the one on the left looks angry, but we can tell that he is a king and he has a very warm presence.
You do have some of these elements in your poster, but it feels more like they have been put in with less thought. If I look at the characters in your poster I can understand that there are 2 baddies (although there may be 4 due to the arms coming into the frame). When I look at the 4 princesses i'm not sure why Ariel is looking to the left of the frame or why is sleeping beauty looking at Ariel in a seductive way. Also, why is there a snowman and a monkey? Is this going to be set in a desert or the Arctic? Does the monkey have a thing for the octopus and is the snowman happy that Ursula is in control? These are things that will confuse the reader. I do like what you have done with the 2 characters in the middle of the Ursula's tentacles and perhaps it might be better to push that, and use that idea of control and being trapped as the main theme.
I did a super quick sketch of something different from the stack of faces, using your idea of having the princess trapped by the tentacles, as the other princesses are protecting the new one in the middle, you could even have olaf and abu ready to fight to make it more comedic. You could also put symbols of the evil objects in the background, but more as an easter egg rather than just to say "hey look at this object from this movie or this from this movie". Of course it is more of a teaser poster and it's not as warm as a kid's movie should be, but I hope you get the idea of trying to tell the story through the poster is a better way then stacking up characters (not that it doesn't work, but it has to have a meaning behind it)
You mentioned that you used the last jedi as an inspiration for the poster, but that is telling a very different story, also tbh I think that that style of poster is quite lazy in terms of design as are many modern posters. If you look at the original star wars poster it tells a story by itself. Luke and Leia are the brightness in the dark that is controlled by the big scary helmet guy. Of course that's a matter of taste, but it's important to know what the poster is suppose to tell
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@chip-valecek Yeah, I really think you should. The last princess is the main character. She should be on the poster. If not, why call it The Last Princess.
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@gary-wilkinson thank you for taking the time to further explain your comments. I understand where you are coming from on the interaction of the characters. I will work on that. I do like your sketch idea and may use something similar for additional posters. Yes a lot of these newer posters are very generic and similar in terms of layout and that is what i was trying to emulate with this poster. I agree the older posters are so much better in terms of design.